Chapter 24
Jenna
Molly: Hey, address change for today. So sorry for being last minute!
I reread the text on my phone, and then shift my eyes to the house in front of me. It’s a nice two-story home and looks very different than the Bradford cabin out by the tree farm. However, before I can double check the address, Molly comes bounding out the front door.
“Hi!” She waves at me, and then stops a couple feet from my car door as I slide out. “I’m so sorry that we changed spots. That was so rude of me, especially with last time.” Her voice has this strange softness to it, and I can’t decide if she actually feels bad…
Or if there is something entirely different going on.
“It’s okay,” I reassure her, slinging my computer bag over my shoulder. “Did your dad have to work?”
Her smiles fades. “Uh… Maybe. I don’t know.”
He just didn’t want me there. Great.
I brush it off. “That’s okay. Let’s get started.”
Molly nods, her bunch of dark hair bouncing on the top of her head. She leads me back to the front door, and I don’t miss the careful effort put into the flowerbeds. “This is your mom’s?”
“Yeah,” Molly hums. “My dad bought this place for her when he got out. She wanted us all to be in the same area, I guess.” She uses her foot to push in the door. “She finished law school when I was younger, but never really did anything with it.”
“Oh,” I keep my voice even, like I’m not intimidated in the slightest.
I mean, honestly… There’s no reason to be. Calvin Bradford is clearly avoiding me like the plague. And I’m just the woman he fucked in the back of the parking lot, which shows exactly where I rank.
Just a couple notches above a prostitute. Cool.
“Her boyfriend lives here, too,” Molly says, leading me into a rustically decorated dining room, with a large farmhouse style table. Her things are already spread out across the top, and I set my bag down opposite of her.
“Well, this is a very nice house.”
Molly meets my gaze, and then shrugs. “My dad says it was his job to make sure my mom was taken care of.” She then pauses, plopping down on the bench style seat. “I think he would’ve just pretended like she didn’t exist, if I would’ve been involved.”
“Oh, I see…” My voice trails off, and I can feel the heat creeping up my neck, as Molly leans her chin against the palm of her hand.
“He didn’t even love my mom that much, I don’t think. Mom says they were just young, and Dad was deploying. They got married, and then stay married because of me—and the fact that Dad was never around. He was always gone, so I think that made it easier to prolong the ending.”
I pull out my notes, but don’t flip them open. “I think that happens a lot with military marriages.”
Molly shrugs, unphased by the topic. “It probably does, but my mom swears he wasn’t really her person.”
Why is she telling me all this?
“And when she realized that, she ended up sleeping with some guy, and then filing for divorce like a week later—all while my dad was in Iraq.”
“That’s… That’s a lot.” I don’t even know what to say to that info dump.
She nods. “My dad acts like he wasn’t upset about it, but I think he was. He’s never really dated since my mom, and always said that it was for stability purposes, you know? But all that happened fifteen years ago. I think he’s been plenty stable for me.” She lets out a laugh, shaking her head.
“Yeah, you’re an adult now,” I point out, tugging my fleece jacket around me a little tighter and shifting on the hard bench.
She picks at the edge of her notebook. “And I want him to find someone.” Her eyes jump to mine, her cheeks tinged a dark shade of red. “Do you like him?”
Oh my god. Does she know? Surely… Would he tell his daughter?
“Um…” My eyes jump from hers to across the living room, where there’s a set of open French doors. I can make out an office of some sort through them, and I stare at a bookcase in the distance until my vision goes blurry.
“Sorry,” Molly clears her throat. “I’m being totally inappropriate right now.”
“It’s completely okay,” I say, swallowing the sigh of relief. I’m all for talking about her dad, but I’d rather avoid myself. The less lies I have to maintain, the better.
She slide across her notebook, which I realize is full of what looks to be a draft. “I decided to take a break from the screen,” she adds, giving me a smile. “I’ll type it up, I just want your opinion.”
I nod, but don’t have a chance to make it through even the first line, before voices fill the kitchen. My gaze rips upward, and I’m met with a pair of light eyes beneath dark curls.
“You must be Dr. Williams,” the woman says, a pleasant smile on her face. She appears older than what I expected, but gracefully beautiful. “I’m Maren Johnson, Molly’s mom. This is Mark.” She gestures to the man beside her, that I had completely missed.
“Hi.” He gives me a nod as he towers behind Maren, his dark eyes penetrating mine in the most uncomfortable way. Everything about his aura is off.
I can feel it.
“It’s nice to meet the two of you.” I don’t let my discomfort show, though I’m pretty sure not blinking at all is a sign of discomfort.
But I can’t be sure.
“Thank you for helping Molly,” Maren chimes, as she grabs a purse off the counter. “It really shows that you care as her professor. So many barely return her emails.”
“I can be a little intense though,” Molly shrugs, her gaze and body staying angled toward me rather than her mom and Mark. “It’s just in my nature. I totally blame my dad for that quality.”
“And that would be entirely correct,” Maren laughs, tipping her head back. She then pauses, turning back to me. “We are going out, and won’t be back until later tonight, but it was very nice to meet you.” She gives me a nice head nod, and then heads for what I’m going to assume is the garage.
Mark, however, pauses instead of following her, his gaze locking with mine. “You’re the interim?”
I swallow hard. “Yes, just while Dr. Shannon is away on maternity leave—for the rest of the semester.”
“Huh.” Mark purses his lips. “And you’re tutoring a student? Is that allowed in the school policy?”
“It is,” I answer, though I have no idea if it’s a lie.
“That’s really nice of you,” he drawls, adjusting the cowboy hat on his head. “Sorry, you just…” His voice trails off, but something in his tone makes it feel like it’s on purpose. “You look so damn familiar. Where are you from, Dr. Williams?”
My mouth grows dry, but as my lips part, Molly cuts in, spinning around in her chair.
“Don’t interrogate my professor, please. Mom is waiting for you.” She glares at him, but his eyes only flicker to her for a split second, jumping back to mine.
“Well, you two have a nice night.” He grins, and it’s the kind that makes my stomach sick. But as he turns to go, Mark takes one last look back at me and winks. “You’re a long way from Texas.”
What. The. Fuck.
I can’t breathe, and as the garage door slams behind the man, I turn to Molly, barely able to hide the panic. “What did you say your mom’s boyfriend does?”
Molly’s brow furrows. “Um… He works in like cybersecurity or something… I don’t know, really. I just know he’s a total creep.”
“Yeah, I agree,” I blurt out, feeling my facade slipping, as the anxiety rises in my chest. How would this random guy know that I’m from Texas? Maybe he’s talked to someone? “Does he have any friends around here?”
“Absolutely not,” Molly hums, pulling out her phone and setting it down on the table. “And he’s totally obsessed with my dad and asks me the weirdest questions.”
“Like what?” I don’t even give a shit about the essay now.
“I don’t know. Everything.” She folds her arms around her chest, shaking her head. “And he’s always does this guy work for your dad? Have you seen him?”
My palms start to sweat, and I casually wipe them on my pants. “What guy?”
Molly goes quiet for a minute. “Um… Cade… Something?” She shrugs. “I don’t know. He showed me a picture of him, and,” she leans forward, lowering her voice, “I think he did work for my dad, but I totally lied. I don’t want to get my dad in trouble.”
I swallow the bile rising in my throat. “So you’ve seen the guy?”
She nods. “Yeah, I saw him a few weeks ago? He was with my dad and his other helper.” As soon as the words leave her lips, her phones blares, and I see a guy’s face light up the screen. Molly’s cheeks grow red, and she goes to silence it. “Sorry.”
I soften immediately. “You can answer it, if you need to. I don’t have a time limit tonight.”
She bites down on her lip, glancing at the screen. “Okay, then I’ll just take this real quick.”
I nod, as she sweeps up the phone and disappears from the room. I hear a door close somewhere in the distant, and her giggle.
Perfect distraction.
I’m up out of my seat immediately, and head straight for the office.
I have no idea who the fuck Mark is, but he obviously knows who I am—and who Cade is.
I stand in the threshold, taking in the desk, bookshelf, and computer.
None of it is neat and organized like the rest of the house.
In fact, it looks like a tornado blew through.
Chewing the inside of my cheek, I anxiously start to shuffle through what’s right in front of me on the desk. I flip through a couple of reports and notes, noticing they’re about the tree farm that Calvin Bradford runs.
And then I see it. The label in the corner.
Mark Robbins, Naval Criminal Investigative Service.
“Oh shit,” I mutter under my breath. This is bad. This is so bad. My hands begin to tremble as I keep digging, and as I shift the next stack…
There’s my brother.
A photo of him, Calvin, and some other man—the one at the bar—standing outside of Calvin’s house. My eyes drop to the date.
Yesterday. It was fucking yesterday.
I squeeze my eyes shut, and just as I do, I hear a door squeak open. I grab some of the papers, including the photos, and shove them under my sweater. As I emerge from the office, Molly is right there, an eyebrow raised.
“What were you doing?”
“Checking out your mom’s library,” I gesture to the bookshelf, my voice barely recovering. “She seems like a reader.”
Molly makes a face. “She’s not. She just likes to appear that way.”
“Oh, figures,” I laugh it off. “Well, let’s get back to it.” I motion to the table, and then carefully cross my arms across my body to casually hold what I just stole against my chest.
People are closing in on my brother, and I need to get there first.
Which means confronting Calvin…
With hopefully some leverage I’ve just stumbled on.